The Fifth Season of Excavations at VIII.7.1-15 and the Porta Stabia at Pompeii: Preliminary Report

The Journal of Fasti Online ● Published by the Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica ● Piazza San Marco, 49 – I-00186 Roma Tel. / Fax: ++39.06.67.98.798 ● http://www.aiac.org; http://www.fastionline.org The Fifth Season of Excavations at VIII.7.1-15 and the Porta Stabia at Pompeii: Preliminary report Steven J.R. Ellis and Gary Devore The Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia (PARP:PS) recently completed its fifth campaign of excavations during which seven trenches were excavated across the extent of VIII.7.1-15. This fifth season built upon the success of previous seasons by further developing the full occupational sequence for this insula and its surroundings. With 30 trenches excavated so far, we are able to detect related physical and stratigraphic associations across the site to establish a detailed and highly nuanced phase plan for the entire insula. A more general picture can be charted from that detailed phase plan. The earliest structures appeared in the 4th century BCE, the evidence for which is extremely ephemeral owing to the almost wholesale destruction of them in the mid 2nd century BCE. There may have been a much earlier abandonment of those 4th century BCE structures during a rather long hiatus of activity before the resumption of human occupation close to 200 years later. The redevelopment of the area can be directly tied to the overall escalation of urban activities at Pompeii in the 2nd century BCE, which was doubtless caused by – or at least related to – the influx of wealth following the sack of Corinth in 146 BCE. Non-elite families developed the site, operating cottage-industries in salted-fish production (especially), metal-working, and tanning among probably other pursuits. The Augustan period brought sweeping changes to the production capacities of this neighbourhood as most of the small-scale workshops were replaced with retail-oriented activities like shops and restaurants. The insula remained essentially modest in its socio- economic fabric, although some important economic differences emerged in the living conditions of the middle-class families. The earthquake/s of 62 CE caused extensive damage to almost every property, but considerable effort was made to rebuild and resume mostly the same activities until their final destruction in 79 CE. The choice of trench locations for the 2009 season was based upon the establishment of our phased history for the site. In this, we were guided especially well by the results of the geophysical survey we conducted in April 2009 in collaboration with the British School at Rome and the Archaeological Prospection Service of South- ampton1. We opened 7 trenches in total (fig. 1). Trench 24000 was opened in the street-side room (Room 9) of VIII.7.4; Trench 25000 was located in the small 'service' room (Room 20) of VIII.7.5-6; Trench 26000 was excavated in the large room (Room 65) that opened off the entrance into VIII.7.12; Trench 27000 was opened in the street- side room (Room 68) of VIII.7.14; Trench 28000 was located in the rear room (Room 78) of pro- perties VIII.7.14-15; Trench 29000 was opened in the street-side room (Room 48) of VIII.7.11; and Trench 30000 was located in the large garden area (Room 30) of VIII.7.5-6. Fig. 1. Location of trenches in VIII.7.1-15 for the 2009 field season. 1 The survey was undertaken by Stephen Kay and Gregory Tucker of the British School at Rome and Sophie Hay of the Archaeological Prospection Service of Southampton. www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2010-202.pdf Steven J.R. Ellis and Gary Devore ● The Fifth Season of Excavations at VIII.7.1-15 and the Porta Stabia at Pompeii: Preliminary report The Project continued to invest much time and resources into collecting and analysing the bio- archaeological record of VIII.7.1-15, as well as continuing our architectural survey of the entire zone. Prof. Mark Robinson (Oxford) initiated a study of the paleosols to develop an understanding of the geological terrain of the area prior to the earliest human occupation. Thanks to the generosity of both the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei and the Laboratorio di Restauro II of the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, we have been able to make excellent progress on the conservation and analysis of about 500 coins recovered by our excavations since 2005 under the direction of Giacomo Pardini (Salerno). Our own programme of conservation of the excavated artefacts at Pompeii has been much advanced by the generous access to the laboratory of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei. The following report outlines and summarises the activities conducted by our Project in the 2009 season. Trench 240002 Trench 24000 was opened inside the eastern half of the street-side room (Room 9) of VIII.7.4 (fig. 2). The aim was to investigate the origin of the property’s northern boundary wall (WF 62)3, and to establish stratified relationships with trenches 5000 (Room 5 of this same property)4, and 11000 (Room 11 in VIII.7.5-6)5. The geophysical survey of the room during our April 2009 season indicated several features and anomalies whose stratified recovery could benefit the overall phasing program for this area of the insula. The excavations extended down as far as the prehistoric volcanic deposits, the lowest being the solid grey lava with black and white crystalline inclusions. It now appears that this solid grey lava was formed by volcanic vents Fig. 2. Plan of Trench 24000. at Pompeii itself, rather than from Vesuvius, sometime between the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene6. The depth of this deposit varied from 1.52 metres below the modern surface at the northern end of the trench, to 3.88 metres in the south. This marked drop in levels indicates this area to be close to the edge of the lava edifice upon which the town would later develop; in fact, to the west of here the fortification walls follow precisely the same line7. A thick deposit of Mesolithic-period mercato ash, dating to around 7000 BCE, overlaid the lava and reflected the same natural topographic discrepancy between north and south. Phase 1: Prehistoric Pottery The earliest developments in this area, as elsewhere in the insula, are fragmentary, indistinct, and largely disconnected from much subsequent activity. Two pits were dug into the mercato ash in the southeastern corner of the trench during the prehistoric period. Some prehistoric pottery (impasto ware) was found associated with them, but it was unfortunately undiagnostic. Phase 2: The 4th Century BCE A levelling fill was laid down over the mercato ash, seemingly unconnected with the pits mentioned in the phase above. This deposit contained black gloss ceramics dating from the mid 4th to the early 3rd century BCE. It was capped by an unusual surface that appeared similar to the later mortar surfaces found throughout the insula (eg. 2 Amanda Pavlick (Cincinnati) and John Bennett (Boston) supervised the excavations of Trench 24000. 3 WF = Wall Face. The authors prefer to use the term ‘wall face’, rather than simply ‘wall’, as the latter can be less specific and prove misleading, particularly as a wall can cover several trenches, and divide several rooms. To refer to a wall face, on the other hand, enables one to more easily define and locate a specific segment of a wall on such complex urban sites. 4 For Trench 5000, see ELLIS and DEVORE 2006: 2-4. 5 For Trench 11000, see DEVORE and ELLIS 2008: 1-4 6 Identified by Prof. Mark Robinson (Oxford). For the solid grey lava being associated with Pompeian volcanic vents, rather than Vesuvius itself, see CINQUE and IROLLO 2004: 101-116. 7 This topographical evidence also suggests the reason why paleosols were largely absent from earlier trenches excavated in VIII.7.1-4 (such as in trench 1000). The prehistoric plateau clearly fell away more sharply than the later historical plateau would suggest in this area. 2 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2010-202.pdf Steven J.R. Ellis and Gary Devore ● The Fifth Season of Excavations at VIII.7.1-15 and the Porta Stabia at Pompeii: Preliminary report Fig. 4. The ‘proto-mortar’ surface beneath the un-bonded lava wall. the mortar floor in phase 1 of Trench 11)8. This ‘proto-mortar’ like surface precedes the more common form of mortar surface that appears in Pompeii typically from the 2nd century BCE. Such a surface might have constituted a sidewalk given its orientation and proximity to the – albeit much later and thus higher – street (fig. 3). An early wall of un-bonded lava stone was po- tentially the next feature built in the area (fig. 4). The construction of this wall caused the burial of the proto-mortar Fig. 3. The ‘proto-mortar’ surface in the northeast corner of the surface. The wall was located almost precisely where the trench (beneath the ranging rods). later WF 62 would be built (Phase 3a), and so it possibly represents an earlier effort to delineate the later property boundary. There was only a slight change in alignment between this early and the later boundary wall (this early wall aligned more toward true east, rather than the northeastern alignment of WF 62). Phase 3a-c: Intensification of Building Activity in the 2nd century BCE Building activity intensified in this area, as with much of the insula, in the 2nd century BCE. WF 62 was built with a more substantive incertum construction directly above the scant remains of the wall from the earlier phase, establishing what would remain a permanent division between VIII.7.1-4 and VIII.7.5-6.

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